It fails to settle the major questions surrounding the September lane closures at the bridge, the lawmakers said, and it does not contain information from all the key people involved.

“The big question of motive has not been answered. As a matter of fact, more questions have been raised,” said state Sen. Loretta Weinberg, D-Teaneck, one of two leaders of the joint legislative committee investigating the lane closures.

Assemblyman John Wisniewski, D-Middlesex, the other leader, said the report is incomplete because several important figures were not interviewed; several are asserting their Fifth Amendment rights against self-incrimination, and others declined to speak to the lawyer hired by Christie.

“It seems like a rush to judgment to come to a conclusion to provide the governor with a talking point so he can attempt to put this controversy behind him,” Wisniewski said. “But the report has factual holes that I believe make it insufficient to accomplish that intended goal.”

The report, released Thursday by Randy Mastro, from the law firm Gibson Dunn, did not indicate a reason for the September lane closures at the George Washington Bridge but said no evidence had been found that the closures were intended as retribution against the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee for declining to endorse Christie’s reelection campaign.

Mastro’s report concluded, though, that Christie was not involved in the decision to close the lanes. Weinberg said she would not take a position on Christie’s involvement until her committee’s investigation is complete, but she said she was not surprised the report absolved the governor. Christie’s administration paid Mastro’s law firm $1 million to create the report, according to The New York Times.

The explosive e-mails and text messages, obtained and first reported by The Record, sparked a political firestorm that extended far beyond New Jersey and Fort Lee. For full coverage, click here.

“Mr. Mastro did what he was paid to do,” Weinberg said.

Assemblyman Michael Patrick Carroll, a Republican on the committee, said he doubted that opponents of Christie’s could be convinced that the Republican governor wasn’t involved in the lane closures.

“If you’re out there trying to prove a negative, that’s an impossibility,” said Carroll, a Morris County lawmaker. “I will never, ever, ever be able to prove that I didn’t do something. They’re never going to be able to accept the fact that there’s no evidence the governor was involved.”

Democrats also took issue with some of the documents cited by the report, which Weinberg said were provided to Mastro before they were submitted in response to her committee’s subpoenas. Between 4,000 and 5,000 pages of additional documents were turned over to the Legislature on Thursday, Weinberg said — within hours of the report’s release.

Wisniewski said he thought the report also contained “irrelevant facts,” such as a reference to a personal relationship between two of the central figures in the scandal: former Christie deputy chief of staff Bridget Anne Kelly and Christie campaign manager Bill Stepien.

Overall, Wisniewski said, “it reads more like a novel than a work of fact.”